


A Very Nice Stranger

by killabeez



Category: Wiseguy
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Multi, POV Minor Character, Season/Series 02, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-08-17
Updated: 1998-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killabeez/pseuds/killabeez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lillah Warfield offers Frank respite and reassurance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Nice Stranger

Monday, 2:37 a.m. Mental note: latest entry in the Collected Unwritten Diaries of our heroine, one Lillah A. Warfield, Secret Agent at Large.

Girl, when are you ever going to learn?

He warned me. Oh, he warned me all right. I just wasn't quite hearing the whole story. And, let's face it, even if I had been, I don't know that I'd have done things a whole lot differently. A sucker for hard luck cases, I guess. That and the fact that it's been longer than I can remember since I met anyone like him, if I ever have. I have a very strong feeling Frank McPike is one of a kind.

No, can't say I'm sorry. Not about making love with him, anyway. Definitely sorry that it's going to be a one time thing.

Even this Girl Wonder has some sense of self-preservation.

Been too long since I felt like this. Nice to know I can still spot them -- even torn up as he is, he still made me feel as good as any man ever has. It'd be too easy to fall for him, to get used to his hands, his gentle, beautiful mouth.

Easy girl. No specifics, okay? He needs his sleep, and you need to get hurt again like you need to get run over by a bus.

Hard not to remember how good it was with him. Hard not to think about how much better it might have been under other, kinder circumstances. If only I'd met you a lifetime ago, Frank. If only my timing wasn't so incomparably, unfailingly bad. You could make me throw self-preservation to the wind in about two seconds flat.

* * *

She thought he'd sleep, after. He needed to so badly. She was close to it herself, lulled by his hand slowly stroking her back, when she realized he was staring up into the dark. His body was right beside hers but his thoughts were someplace very far away. She thought she could guess where.

She didn't want to go to sleep while he bore the whole burden of guilt for what they'd done. Ungraciously, she thought that the wife probably wasn't worth it, and she knew without him having to tell her that this wasn't something he'd ever done before.

Turning over, she caught his hand in hers. "Frank."

He squeezed her fingers a little, then let them go. "I'm all right. Go to sleep. It's all right." He touched her gently, palm cupping her hip, before drawing his hand back.

"You need to sleep too, Frank. Let it go. Things will look different in the morning." Too true, she knew.

His breath seemed to catch, and she felt the first twinge of real guilt for coercing him into this when he was down and, by his own admission, far too vulnerable. She'd thought he'd understood there was no shame in this, just a very human need for comfort, but maybe she'd been projecting her own conviction.

"I can't sleep," he said softly, utterly defeated, and so exhausted she could hear the weight of it in what was almost a plea. Hurting for him, she put her arm around his waist without thinking about it. As if that was what he'd been waiting for, he turned into her arms and whispered against her shoulder, "Lillah, I'm so scared."

That wasn't what she'd expected, and it went straight through her. Had she ever known another man who could have made those words a strength and not a weakness, the admission an act of courage, not one of surrender? She couldn't do anything but hold him and try to keep her heart from getting lost.

"Shh. It's okay. I'm here."

The fierce tremors that wracked him went as swiftly as they'd come, and he just held on, unmoving against her, his head tucked under her chin. He smelled nice, like the almond shampoo they gave you in places like these.

He was too still, she realized. Holding it in.

"It's okay, Frank," she said gently.

For a second, the stillness didn't change. Then his hold on her tightened, and suddenly she felt the heat of his face against her skin, and tears. "What am I gonna do, Lillah? What am I gonna do if he dies?"

The tears were as much exhaustion as anything, and she knew that, held him close as best she knew how. Exhaustion, yes, but not just that. No, not just that. She thought then of the way he had said Terranova's name earlier, the way he'd turned his face away from her afterward, the way his whole body had drawn in on itself with the hurt of telling her how he had first seen Terranova lying in his own blood.

At last, she heard what he'd been saying without words. She'd tried to tell him that things would get better, that his wife (foolish woman) would soon see the error of her ways. She'd apparently been missing a good part of the picture.

He sighed and rubbed his face against her a little, too tired to sustain the tension for long. Lillah held him tighter and told him what he needed to hear. "He's going to be all right. He's made it this far; he's very strong. He's not going to die, I promise you." She sent a silent prayer with all her heart that the promise wouldn't become a betrayal of the trust he'd placed in her.

He pulled back a little. "You don't understand. I'm not sure his will to live is strong enough. He lost someone. Someone he was close to."

"If he were going to give up he would have done it already, but he won't. He won't let you down, Frank. He knows you want him to live."

She felt something shudder through him -- relief or hope, she wasn't sure. He buried his face against her again and she held him like that for a while.

"It's all right," she said quietly after some minutes had gone by. "It's perfectly understandable, you know." She knew better than she knew her own name how desperately lonely this work could be, how easy it could be to let whatever source of honesty and unguarded truth you could find become your whole world. She was here with him, wasn't she? "It's only natural to feel like this, Frank." She found she suddenly had to fight to keep from crying herself. "We wouldn't be human if we didn't."

His fingers laced in her hair, stroking her neck, the side of her face. "Oh, Lillah." He breathed it out, a sigh on which her name broke. She felt him struggling with it. It was very clear to her that this was not something he'd ever talked about with anyone -- maybe hadn't even admitted it to himself before this moment. But he didn't try to pretend he didn't know what she was talking about. "I'm so sorry."

She held him fiercely, touched his mouth with hers. "I'm not. Not one little bit."

They kissed, tasting tears she wasn't sure were his. Comfort, only, for both of them. When it was over she touched his face in the dark, tracing his cheekbone and feeling tracks of salt. "He doesn't know," she said gently, not a question. He made a breathless sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh.

"Right."

A pause.

"You never know," she said.

"No, I know."

"You think you know."

"Lillah, I _know_."

"He needs someone too. Someone who understands. Someone who fights for him. Someone who--"

"Don't." His tone left no room for argument, his body stiff with the denial of what she was saying. "You don't have any idea what you're talking about."

She let that pass.

"He's going to be all right. He will, Frank."

He was quiet. Afraid to answer that, she guessed. Afraid to hope for fear of inviting the wrath of a world that could be cruel. But after a moment he relaxed against her again, fingers curling into hers.

"You are a beautiful person, Lillah Warfield."

She thought, _Damn you, Frank McPike, for being too good to be true._

"Flattery will get you everywhere," she told him, loving the feeling of his hand in hers and trying not to think about how much she would miss it when it was gone.

* * *

He's sleeping now, at last. I hope he stays that way for a few hours at least. I hope with everything in me that the phone doesn't ring to wake him with bad news.

Hear me, Vince Terranova? Live, please. Please don't make me sorry I promised.

One of these days I ought to write down some of these journal entries I keep in my head. Maybe they'd strike me as funny someday, about twenty or thirty years from now. Maybe I could get a good laugh. Maybe I could learn something, figure out how to stop putting myself into impossible situations, how to stop caring so much. Come to think of it, maybe Frank ought to read some of them, too.

Then again, I don't think I'd really want that. Superman is great, but what would he be without Clark Kent's heart to keep him honest? Just wish I'd remembered last night that Lois Lane never did get a happily ever after.

And so ends another installment of The Adventures of Lillah A. Warfield, Girl Wonder. Stay tuned for next week's exciting episode, in which Our Heroine works on her timing, and thinks about getting a dog.

**Author's Note:**

> This was printed in Sanctuary II. The Frank/Vinnie is implied, the Sonny/Vinnie implication is even more barely there, and I make no promises, but I hope it gives someone a smile.
> 
> Spoilers (such as they are) are through "Not for Nothing." And this will make no sense if you haven't seen that one.


End file.
